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K-State On Line's Mason Voth checks in to talk Jerome Tang and more.
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00:57And joining us, one of my old colleagues back in the day in Manhattan at News Radio KMAN.
01:03Now with K-State Online, Mason, both.
01:07Mason, good to talk to you again.
01:08Welcome, sir.
01:09Yeah, good to talk to you.
01:10First ever high school football game I called on the radio.
01:14Brady was the analyst for the game.
01:17Rock Creek and St. Mary's.
01:18Wow.
01:19If you guys are college colleagues, you're grouping yourself in with an old man, Mason.
01:23Whoa, he was not in college when I was in college.
01:28He was not.
01:29Yeah, he was.
01:29I'm not bad.
01:30I'm the old man, TJ.
01:31I'm ancient.
01:32Yeah, I know you are.
01:33I forgot about that, Mason.
01:34All right, we bring in Mason.
01:35We got the Jerome Tang news yesterday from Pete Thamel.
01:39Noted Jerome Tang.
01:42Fill in the adjective.
01:42I don't even know what you want to say about that, Mason.
01:45We got the news.
01:46It's going to be a $12 million settlement.
01:49First of all, give us your reaction, then we'll ask questions from there.
01:53Probably right in line with what I anticipated roughly the number would be when this first went down.
01:59I didn't think that he was going to end up with nothing.
02:02I also was not in the camp of people.
02:05Most of the national media, it was like, he's getting all this.
02:08There's no way.
02:08He's getting all this.
02:09He deserves it.
02:10I'm like, no.
02:10I think that this is going to be kind of whittled down.
02:13So the fact that K-State was able to save over a third of the buyout, I think is, I
02:19wouldn't call it a win because it's still a massive loss that you have to pay this much to him
02:23to not coach there.
02:25But it's making at least a little bit better of a pretty terrible situation.
02:29So once they were in this spot, I think it is a win for them to save close to $7
02:35million.
02:35I've seen a lot of people rounding down and saying, oh, you saved $6 million.
02:39Was it worth the bad?
02:40Well, it was 6.7.
02:42If we're being good at math, we are rounding that up to seven more than down to six.
02:46But it's true.
02:47You got to think of the legal fees, though.
02:48There's something.
02:49There's going to be more.
02:50My brain always goes to, was it Les Miles right at KU where they did this?
02:55And then the legal fees, they ended up losing money with the settlement.
02:59They could have just fired him and just paid him money.
03:00So it's not going to be $7 million with the legal fees.
03:03Let me be clear.
03:04It's not going to be that.
03:05Mason, we said earlier in the show, basically along the same lines that you did, is that, you
03:10know, they saved a lot of money.
03:11You can think about the PR hit part of it as well.
03:14But, you know, was this, you know, always the goal when this all happened, you know,
03:19for the people that overreacted and said, like, I can't believe they're firing him for cause
03:24and are going to try to get away with paying him nothing.
03:26I think that Gene Taylor is smarter than to know that they were never going to pay him
03:30nothing.
03:31Yeah.
03:32Basically, my opinion on it when this first went down was that they knew all along they
03:37were going to have to pay him some form of money.
03:39There was never really a world where they were going to pay $0 for him to not coach there
03:43anymore.
03:44But he kind of gave K-State the opportunity to set this thing up to not be just a standard,
03:50hey, we're kicking you out, whatever, because we don't want you anymore.
03:52Because I think if he makes it to the end of the season without incident, that probably
03:57happens.
03:58But I don't think K-State was going to fire him in the middle of last year.
04:02It became clear after that Iowa State game that he had to be done after last season.
04:06But he goes, I mean, it was not great after the Iowa State game.
04:10And it already started to get bad earlier that week when they lost to West Virginia.
04:14But then when they came back home and they had that loss to Cincinnati, and he talks to
04:19Wyatt and Stan.
04:20Well, he doesn't really talk with them.
04:22He talks at them for 20 seconds and then bolts.
04:25And then he's got like a two-minute press conference where he just makes a statement and
04:29says, these guys don't deserve to wear the uniform.
04:31And just a lot of stuff there.
04:33It became clear at that point, he can't move forward as your coach.
04:35And so when that happens, if you're Gene Taylor in K-State, you do say to yourself,
04:39you're like, well, we kind of have to fire him right now, even though it's not like he's
04:45giving us a great legal reason to get rid of him.
04:48So I think then they made that the point of, hey, there's some wonky language in the contract
04:53that maybe we can get creative with.
04:55And at the very least, it's going to give us an avenue to save us some money.
04:59So I think both sides kind of appreciated what happened there in February because Jerome
05:04Tang, I think, was realizing that it was a lost cause.
05:08And he was ready to get out of there and get his money to go build the orphanages that
05:11he wanted.
05:12And K-State was ready to have him out of Manhattan and start fresh.
05:16So I think that this is pretty much what both sides expected to come their way.
05:21Because if you are Jerome Tang, you don't want to take the ultimate risk here of saying,
05:27all right, well, let's just see if I can get all this money.
05:30Because there is still a slim chance that he could have ended up with zero based on the
05:35language and I think it had to be tried in Riley County court.
05:38So, and look, he said in February last year, he wanted to find a K-State friendly judge to
05:44help with some rulings.
05:45So maybe that would have happened in just a negative way for him.
05:48So I think this is the best outcome for both sides based off the situation they were in.
05:54Best outcome for K-State and Jerome Tang would have been that they kept winning, but he did
05:58very little of that.
05:59Mason, both K-State online, joining us on Sports Daily here on KFH, talking the $12 million
06:05settlement between K-State and Jerome Tang that was reported yesterday.
06:11And, you know, a lot of those things, to me, the biggest eyebrow raiser wasn't necessarily
06:15when he was talking about players not deserving to wear the jersey, because we hear that sort
06:19of language from time to time.
06:21My bit, the biggest eyebrow raiser for me was when he was talking about these guys are the
06:26new assistant head coaches.
06:28That was like, to me, that was like, okay, now you're just totally putting everything
06:32on the players, not taking any sort of accountability at that point.
06:35And again, emotions were high at that point.
06:37But overall, Mason, to kind of take an after-school special sort of narrative on this, what have
06:44we learned?
06:45What do you think K-State learned from this experience?
06:47It seems like already, with the hiring of Casey Alexander, going less flashy, more under
06:53the radar, and when K-State brought in Tang, you know, fresh up being a national championship
07:00part of that program and a lot of expectations, what has K-State learned from this?
07:05What do you think Coach Tang has learned from this whole experience?
07:08Yeah, I'm trying to think of what episode of Arthur they cover coach buyouts and how to
07:14make hires in your athletic department.
07:17I think one of the things that they kind of take away from this is, number one, like,
07:22no coach, well, very few coaches are big enough to deserve that kind of contract security that
07:28Jerome Tang got.
07:30And I can understand why Gene Taylor made that extension because, you know, coming off of that
07:35Elite Eight, and like, Jerome Tang had a lot of people believing that, you know, the highest
07:40of highs could be done at K-State.
07:42And after year one, you have a pretty good idea that, yeah, sure, that can happen.
07:46If you can do this in year one with a brand new team that was picked to finish, I think,
07:49bottom two in the Big 12, certainly you think it could get done.
07:53But at the end of the day, he and his staff were far better at just kind of hyping everything
08:00up.
08:00I mean, they were essentially, and I'm not saying this in the way that I think some fans mean
08:04it in a truly nasty way, but they were con men by the definition of it.
08:09They came in and they sold you a bill of goods that they never really brought to you.
08:13And I think that when the Arkansas flirtation started to come up, that was after the NIT
08:20year, but there was a lot there that you could say, well, you know, you don't have Naquan
08:24Tomlin.
08:24You expected him.
08:25A couple of guys got banged up.
08:27So it makes sense.
08:29They were on the cusp of making the tournament still.
08:31So it makes sense to lock him down.
08:32You want to keep him because he was getting K-State fans to believe like they had never believed
08:36before.
08:37And Gene Taylor probably feels a lot of heat because if they lose Jerome Tane to Arkansas
08:40at that time, then people melt down.
08:42They act like it's a big deal.
08:43My issue with it has always come down to it has to be Gene and the athletic department's
08:49job to understand, okay, this is a bridge too far with what we put in here.
08:54And I think if you had pulled a lot of fans or media and said, hey, this buyout, it's going
09:00to be fully guaranteed.
09:01You're going to owe him nearly $20 million if you want to get rid of him in two years when
09:07things go poorly.
09:08Then I think you would have had some pushback going, well, you know, I don't know that it's
09:11worth that.
09:13Because, you know, in college basketball, there's only been a handful of coaches in my
09:17life that I would say that guy is worth that money.
09:19And one of them happens to coach in the state at KU.
09:22Like Bill Self, absolutely worth that money.
09:24You give it to him.
09:25Mike Krzyzewski, yeah, you would have given it to him.
09:27But like even some of the hot names right now, like would you lock yourself into that
09:32deal if you were, you know, hiring TJ Otzelberger at Iowa State or like there's just a handful
09:39of guys out there who say, I don't know.
09:41Nobody is worth that much.
09:43And I think that that's probably the lesson learned here.
09:46And now they move on with Casey Alexander where it's a much more measured approach.
09:51Some of it dictated by like the financial constraints.
09:54Of what K-State basketball is facing right now.
09:56They don't have the NIL pool that a lot of coaches would be seeking out.
10:00And, you know, you probably weren't going to be able to win a major bidding war for some
10:05of the hot names out there.
10:06Like probably the top name that was out there that K-State thought they might get was Jared
10:12Calhoun.
10:13Once some of the others went by, but he ends up at Cincinnati.
10:16I think Cincinnati probably could pay more.
10:18They had probably more in NIL resources to give him given the circumstances.
10:22And, you know, he had connections to Bob Huggins in Cincinnati.
10:26And then the other one, Alan Huss, he gets promoted to the head job at Creighton.
10:30And I think K-State was interested in him.
10:32They're in a better situation.
10:33So this was kind of a hard lesson for Gene Taylor and K-State to learn is that not by
10:40choice are they going down this path.
10:42I think Casey Alexander was one of the main guys that they thought they wanted, but they
10:47kind of had their hand forced by this situation.
10:50And I mean, I'd like to believe that Casey Alexander can overcome this because I think
10:56he is a great coach and a great guy, but I've got major concerns at the restrictions that
11:02the program faces.
11:03And it could take years to dig out of the Jerome Tang hole.
11:07The point that you brought up, Mason, is a good one because I brought this up earlier
11:11in the show is that it's an impossible situation for Gene Taylor, right?
11:15Because what if Tang leaves and goes to Arkansas and he goes and gets a guy there and they go
11:19to the final four, right?
11:20And they cross that threshold and it goes well.
11:22Well, then every K-State fan wants to run Gene Taylor out of town because he let the one
11:27thing that brought the program back to relevance, he walked out that door and didn't want to
11:31pony up and pay him.
11:32I think if you asked everybody, you know what it was like, it's like, you got to do this.
11:36You want to keep them.
11:36It's like, if that point they were, they wanted to build a statue, right?
11:39Maybe not at the point where that second amendment happened, but that first contract extension,
11:43they did, you know, they went to the elite eight and did all those things.
11:47Obviously the biggest question that you get from this is, you know, point A is that K-State
11:52saved almost $7 million, correct?
11:54Point B is that they did, you know, were the brunt of all jokes on SportsCenter for a month
12:00and that happened.
12:01And Gene Taylor took a lot of heat that he's the guy that wrote the contract and signed
12:06it at the bottom.
12:06And then, you know, for lack of better words, weaseled his way out and saved $7 million,
12:11right?
12:11That's a lot of egg on the face for K-State in this situation as well.
12:15You know, how do you think that you view that of, you know, weighing the pros and the cons
12:19of that?
12:20I think, you know, it's unfortunate when you see, like, you know, I cover K-State and
12:27I can be objective about them, but I went to K-State.
12:30There's nothing in my life aside from my family that I'm more proud of than K-State.
12:34And I have my family because of K-State.
12:36My parents met there.
12:37I met my wife there and I've got brothers because of my parents and I've got, you know,
12:42daughters because of my wife.
12:43Like it's a meaningful place for me.
12:45So it's unfortunate when you see K-State kind of get dragged like that, but you also
12:50understand pretty quickly if you're engaged in this, the national media doesn't have really
12:55the full picture and understanding of everything that went on behind the scenes.
12:59Like they, you know, they know some of the bigger things that would pop up and, but mainly
13:03they just think of, oh, hey, you know, this is, this was a great guy after the final four
13:07or the elite eight run and everybody was excited and he's charismatic and a lot of good
13:11stuff.
13:12But they don't see how he treated a lot of people and how I think a lot of it was
13:17very
13:17performative and, and how things kind of operated.
13:20And so I think you're seeing it now already, like it's popped back up because immediately
13:25after, you know, you got Seth Greenberg on there, he's getting all this, you know, all
13:28these national guys, what is Kansas state doing?
13:30Well, K-State won because all those people took the angle of, you have no, no means to do
13:35this.
13:35You're not going to come out.
13:37K-State saves $7 million.
13:38If you have that opportunity, you're going to do it.
13:41Um, but unfortunately, like, I think you can see the people that are still kind of
13:46in, I don't know that they're in Tang's back pocket, but they are going to very much
13:51take the side of coaches because, you know, I mean, they're coaches on TV.
13:54The coaches are going to pick the coaches.
13:56And then, you know, the, the media, the national media, they want the flow of information
14:00from agents or those coaches.
14:02Uh, and we know that Jerome Tang and any coach associated with him, they are no stranger
14:06to wanting to get their message out when they want their message out, uh, and being friendly
14:11with media.
14:12And so I think that's something to take into consideration.
14:14Like you're seeing that happen again.
14:16Um, like Kevin Sweeney of sports illustrated yesterday, he was one of them.
14:19Like he does good stuff, but immediately it was like, it was back to bagging on K-State.
14:23It's like, well, I think there needs to be a little bit more of an understanding that
14:28Jerome Tang did a lot of this to himself.
14:30Jerome Tang is far from the victim here.
14:32Like he is absolutely the, the guy coming out as a winner.
14:36He did very little winning at K-State and he still made, you know, a lot of money.
14:40And now he's getting a lot more to not coach there anymore.
14:43Yeah.
14:43And not, didn't get picked up as a head coach anywhere after this either.
14:46I had to go back to Baylor.
14:48Kevin Sweeney tried saying yesterday that, well, some AAC or CUSA schools would pick him
14:52up.
14:52I was like, I don't think anybody's hiring that guy as a head coach anymore.
14:56Yeah.
14:57Well, we got to go Mason.
14:58Thanks so much for taking time to talk with us.
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